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Questions to ask when visiting primary schools?

I let my daughter choose her own school out of the three local ones. We visited them all together and were shown round and the one she chose (this was for nursery but it's attached to the primary) the teacher was just fantastic and made us all feel so welcome and secure that she would be happy and well cared for. My daughter is nine now and still loves school and a lot of that I believe is down to the great start she had with the wonderful nursery teacher. She retired at xmas time and I made her a card, inside of which I thanked her for making my daughters first year of school such a positive experience and helping to instill a love of learning in her :)
 
Thanks, SBL... I think the pastoral questions can be especially important in schools that are seen as good. I know good schools can be fine as long as the kids are 'fine', but not great at dealing with challenges.

Barnet, like everywhere, does have a shortage of primary places, but, certainly round our way, most primaries are at least good, with only two I can think of locally being problematic.
 
What sort of pastoral care is offered
What do the school do to help the children feel like they 'belong' to the school community; quite a few primaries have introduced a sort of 'school council' system where those in year 6 actually get to help make some important decisions. If the children are seen as valued it massively increases their chances of succeeding and (more importantly) enjoying school
What SEN support do they offer and how good is it
How much time for 'play' is offered
If your kid is going to be having school luches, are they healthy
Do they get to go on trips / extracurricular activities offered - how much can / are these trips subsidised if there are costs involved
 
Well, school I just saw was lovely, fantastic but, as I suspected, we're not in catchment and it's 400 applications for 90 places most of the time. OTOH, the catchment area was larger than I thought and would suggest that we probably are in catchment for the other 'excellent' rated school (though I know a number of factors may affect exactly where it spreads to) and definitely for our first choice, where catchment isn't really the issue anyway (it's a Jewish school and, though on the site of our synagogue, is actually affiliated to another movement, and gives priorities to members of Reform synagogues).

The visit was a good practise run anyway, though it's a shame it's not worth us applying for.
 
TruXta said:
Our neighbour insists there are no primary schools at all in Ferndale ward. Anyone know if this is true?
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The map for primaries in Lambeth is on page 23 of the Lambeth booklet.

http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/NR/rdonly...C7CC/0/StartingPrimarySchoolLambeth201213.pdf

and the Ferndale ward is here:
http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/3512BEDA-B5CB-42BF-A6C3-A196C39FF04A/0/FerndaleWardMap.pdf

so it looks like your neighbour is right.

It is true that some were lost to the buildings being sold off by Lambeth. Most famously Effra primary school was sold off (next to the current nursery and children's centre) to make into luxury flats. The ones which now constantly have To Let/For Sale signs outside. The word is that the politician (whose name I forget now) who signed it off to go ahead then moved his family to the Rosendale catchment area instead. (since he could afford to). This is heresay on my part, but wouldn't surprise me.

actually heard it here on urban!

co-op said:
I'd love to hear what Jim Dickson has to say about this since he decided that Effra Primary should be closed, just about the same time that he moved out of the area into a nice Tory ward in ThurlowPark and got his own children a nice easy pass into Rosendale Primary.

What a hypocrite that man is.
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Cloo said:
Got my first 'potential primary school for my daughter' visit tomorrow and the first questions that come to my mind are along the lines of:
- What secondary schools do kids go onto, also perhaps, specifically, which/any selective ones?
- Before/after school activities - what and how much?
- Music making - is there a choir/music ensemble (if there isn't a choir, I might be up for stepping up and doing one if I could find a way!)
- How much homework (not hugely bothered either way, but helpful to know)?

Be interested in any parents'/teachers' views of good questions. And maybe bad ones ;)
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I may be a little late with my comment but I think some of the best people to judge the quality of primary schools are the teachers who work in local high-schools.

They receive these students from many primary schools so should have a good understanding of the different strengths and weaknesses of the local intake.
 
1%er said:
I may be a little late with my comment but I think some of the best people to judge the quality of primary schools are the teachers who work in local high-schools.

They receive these students from many primary schools so should have a good understanding of the different strengths and weaknesses of the local intake.
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I think this probably works well if you're a provincial or rural secondary. In the case of many London secondary schools we have such an enormous number of feeder schools that it's not that easy to get a grasp of what the primaries are like - especially as they can change quite quickly. Also, I find that year 7 students when they first arrive tend to mostly be quite subdued at first - overwhelmed probably at being in "big school". It takes a while for true personalities to show.

That being said, in my secondary department we run primary taster sessions several times a year and the differences between the groups who come in can be quite noticeable - however on those days they are in their own peer groups, rather than left to their own devices with all the year 8,9,10 and 11s.
 
gaijingirl said:
quite a few of the local primaries are taking on extra classes from next year. I actually spoke to the headteacher at Hitherfield recently and he listed a bunch of them - can't remember which ones off the top of my head but there's some (fairly unhelpful) info here:

http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/Services/EducationLearning/EducationEstatesAndCapitalProjects/
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In Barnet they apparently ask schools to take turns to have a 'bulge year', an extra form entry, to try to make up for lack of places. As luck would have it, it's apparently the turn of the the nearest 'excellent' school to us to do it in 2012. My brother-in-law, whose son also joins Reception in 2012, apparently doesn't want to put it down because it will have the extra class, but gsv and I aren't bothered by that. Still, have to see what we think of the place before we decide if and where to put it down.
 
Cloo said:
In Barnet they apparently ask schools to take turns to have a 'bulge year', an extra form entry, to try to make up for lack of places. As luck would have it, it's apparently the turn of the the nearest 'excellent' school to us to do it in 2012. My brother-in-law, whose son also joins Reception in 2012, apparently doesn't want to put it down because it will have the extra class, but gsv and I aren't bothered by that. Still, have to see what we think of the place before we decide if and where to put it down.
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They have already been doing that here for a few years, they've done it at the school where my daughter goes to nursery and to the one where she'll likely go to primary but now the situation is so bad that instead of taking turns they're just getting lots of schools to permanently expand.
 
These are the ones I asked?

Are you going to have more kids in this year and build on your playground?
Are you strict and all that?
Are you feeble and let the kids burn each other in the playground or something?
Do you have an early morning club and after school club and holiday club?

Then they just give you the one you are closest to.
 
It's a real problem it seems. Lambeth have asked its residents to appeal to gov't for more money to create extra places in the borough. I'm worried (although it's a while off yet) for when our girl goes as it was such a boom year for births, we'll be lucky to get a place at all it seems. I've already heard again (but parental grapevine so might not be true) of parents who are home schooling after not getting a place this year. I imagine they probably were offered places but possibly so far away it was impossible for them to take them up.

"We have already created 300 additional places since 2009 and need an extra 300 reception places (a total of 2100 permanent places) by 2015 but we need the money to do this." From Lambeth's "We are running out of space, will your child have a school place by 2015?"
 
Cloo said:
In Barnet they apparently ask schools to take turns to have a 'bulge year', an extra form entry, to try to make up for lack of places. As luck would have it, it's apparently the turn of the the nearest 'excellent' school to us to do it in 2012. My brother-in-law, whose son also joins Reception in 2012, apparently doesn't want to put it down because it will have the extra class, but gsv and I aren't bothered by that. Still, have to see what we think of the place before we decide if and where to put it down.
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Something to consider, if it's likely to be a case of 'squeezing your child in', is that they'll be in a large class, maybe in too-small accommodation, possibly missing out on thing like PE time/assembly because the school is full to bursting. My kids go to the catchment school, but it is very popular and literally busting at the seams - it's the biggest primary in Edinburgh (700 kids) and this year's P1 intake was 99 children, which caused a massive headache re accommodation. Currently the P1s are being taught in one class of 25 in the main school building, and two classes of 37 with two teachers in the 'temporary' huts in the playground, and the P2s have had to move to what's called 'the Annexe' which is classrooms in a church hall a couple of streets away from the main school, with a tiny playground (literally about the size of my flat) and no provision for school dinners. This is having an effect on my son's education that I didn't realise was likely when I moved here.
 
Interesting - perhaps I should ask the school about how it will be accommodating the extra class... the school has a pretty big site, so they shouldbn't be too squished, but it's worth finding out what the effect could be.
 
I just asked exactly the same question at a local primary I visited.* They are actually building to increase capacity and I was worried both about the possible loss of outside space (which is important to us) and also about whether the school would lose its "personal touch" if that make sense - it's nice to think that one's child will be somewhere not so large that they'll get lost or overlooked.

Obviously the head was very confident and to be fair, they've managed to accommodate the building without losing any outdoor space (of which they have an unusually large amount). I'd prefer it if they weren't expanding but since so many are and there are so few places, I think that we will have very little choice in the matter by the time we send our daughter.

Another school nearby has been rumoured to be putting the playground on the roof in order to use the current playground to accommodate a new building.. I have no idea if this is true or going ahead - but I'd be less keen on that - plus the school doesn't have a great reputation amongst parents to begin with (although a good ofsted rating!).

*our girl is not yet 2 but I'm not some mental mumzilla - we're about to buy a house next to this school and I didn't want to go ahead if we really hated it, so went to have a look on an open morning.
 
We saw a school we liked yesterday. We also saw one that parents really like and Ofsted rate as outstanding, but I didn't like it. I didn't like the head, and the school is massive; they've just added another form so it's a 4 form intake i.e 120 kids in a year! I think that's just too big.
It's not the nearest - our nearest is a single form entry, new building next to Rosa's children's centre, nice outside space, which is more my kind of thing, but because it's small and in the middle of an estate and all the middle class people want their kids to go the afore mentioned 'outstanding' one, I'm afraid it might not be as mixed as I'd like. The school we liked is further away but had a really nice warm feel, good mix of kids, class wise and ethnically (also kids of people coming to the UK and doing phds at the uni go there, so it's quite international too), they have the biggest school orchestra in Brum (no idea yet if R has any musical aptitude as she can't hold a tune but I like that it's an option), and whilst there's no green space in the school they have a gate onto the park next to it.

The space though compared to R's nursery is just crap though; I find these Victorian schools inadequate for children's needs really.
 
gaijingirl said:
Another school nearby has been rumoured to be putting the playground on the roof in order to use the current playground to accommodate a new building.. I have no idea if this is true or going ahead - but I'd be less keen on that - plus the school doesn't have a great reputation amongst parents to begin with (although a good ofsted rating!).

*our girl is not yet 2 but I'm not some mental mumzilla - we're about to buy a house next to this school and I didn't want to go ahead if we really hated it, so went to have a look on an open morning.
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Really? Which school is that?
 
Fenstanton.. but like I say, total hearsay.... (the roof bit that is) - the reputation comes from people I know who have withdrawn the their kids from there... although to be fair, some of my own students went there and say it was good.

eta.. that's not the school i went to visit though..
 
Ask them if they have seen any large bears with big eyes peeking around the side of or over walls.
 
ianw said:
How weird. We didn't ever visit Fenstanton but it always looks like it has a fair amount of outside space.
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that's the point.. it's controversial because they're wanting to expand the primary and build a secondary on the site - thereby losing all the space.

It's been going on for ages... see here:

http://www.streathamguardian.co.uk/...test_at_Fenstanton_Primary_site_academy_plan/

"Teachers fear building an academy next to Fenstanton will delay rebuilding the primary school and it losing playspace, while parents are concerned of the impact of the changes on their children."

but I don't know what the state of play is at the moment.. there are 3 documents about it on the school's own website, but it doesn't make it clear what's happening right now.

http://www.fenstanton.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=67&Itemid=111

found a more recent article here:
http://www.streathamguardian.co.uk/news/6320929.Funding_released_for_academy_on_Fenstanton_site/

I wonder what the plans are currently though.. anyone know?
 
You'd think with the shortage of places, they'd expand Fenstanton as a primary not a secondary.

None of the schools near me are supposed to be that good. I'll choose the one out of them that has the best music provision. Even if the little one doesn't have an aptitude for it in the end, it's a good way of learning and better than all that phonics and shit at 5.
 
The ones nearest us aren't great either, although the 'outstanding' one isn't far. Our nearest, I'll be visiting this morning but I don't expect to like it. The one we like best is a mile away as the crow flies and if we don't get a place there then I fear we'll be offered a place somewhere we haven't chosen, i.e our nearest, as I think you're only likely to get a place at what I'd like to choose as our second or third if you put them first. So much for choice.
 
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